The Little Match Girl
by shukuo
Summary: 11th Doctor. The Doctor and Amy visit a young writer of fairy tales and finally understand the secret of Bad Wolf Bay.


"And... done." The Doctor leaned against a long lever, leg nonchalantly crossed, straightening his bow tie. The lever, responding to the weight, slowly caused the entire TARDIS to tilt to the left. Losing his balance, and his cool, The Doctor toppled over his lanky legs, righting the TARDIS on the way down. "Oops."

Amy giggled from above, lying on her stomach on top of what looked like a 1950s refrigerator, if they came in extra-large, but then returned her attention to something she held in her hands. The Doctor clambered to his feet, and barely a nanosecond later had hopped over two furry settees and poked his head up to her level. "What have you got there?" he asked.

Amy held it away from him. "Nothing." The Doctor grabbed for it, but Amy persisted in holding it out of his reach. She sat up and hid it in her lap, covered by her hands. The Doctor feinted, turning his back to her for a second, then he whipped around and snatched it from her. "Hey!" she protested, but he had already held the tiny cardboard box up to the light. He shook it, listened to it, and sniffed it. "Amy Pond, what in the seven moons of Bay are you doing with a _matchbox_?"

Amy plucked the box from his hand and put it in her pocket. "I was thinking of taking up smoking," she said sarcastically. "You idiot, it came from the same dump all this other rubbish came from. What are _you_ doing with all this junk?" She kicked a slimy turquoise hose attached to a copper sphere crusted with black mud.

"You," said the Doctor, pointing a finger in Amy's face, "have no imagination. There are fifty ways to use an anti-fusion propeller. Fifty-one, if you count its intended purpose."

"Which is...? Or should I say, was?" asked Amy as the Doctor turned and strode to the TARDIS's door.

A blast of bitter-cold wind invaded the jewel-toned control room as the Doctor tossed the door open to investigate the outside world. Smacking his lips, he pronounced "Denmark." The look of a connoisseur crossed his face, and he added, "Christmas, 1829."

Amy followed him out the door saying, "Would it kill you to answer a question?"

She immediately wished she had a coat. They were on a wide charcoal-colored plain, with paler grey waves crashing in the distance, without anything to shield them from the icy wind. Just then, a wagon stopped next to the shivering girl, and the driver said, "Hop in, or you'll freeze before you reach Odense." The TARDIS translation circuits made him sound vaguely Liverpudlian. Even though it wasn't far to the cluster of white cottages with red roofs, they obeyed without argument – Amy bouncing into the hay-filled rear of the cart, and the Doctor clambering onto the front bench beside the scrawny teenager wrapped in a ridiculously long scarf. "It's Hans," said the boy, shaking the Doctor's hand. Both Amy and the Doctor introduced themselves, and the cart lurched forward into the town.

They arrived at a small cottage, identical to both its neighbors, except a small child's face shone in the front window. "Liese!" called Hans. He vaulted out, pulled a small bundle from the pile of hay in the back, and tucked it into his coat in a fluid movement. "We've got company," he explained to his sister, who had run out to hug his knees. "The Doctor and Amy."

Liese smiled, front tooth missing, and bashfully ran inside. "She's not much for houseguests," laughed Hans, "...or I'm guessing that's the problem, seeing as how we've never had houseguests before."

"Mmm. Company for Christmas. Appropriate, isn't it, Doctor?" asked Amy, but the Doctor was already playing a convoluted game of Hide-and-Seek with Liese. While he counted, Hans poured Amy some tea. "I was coming home from Copenhagen when I saw you two. Are you new in town?" asked Hans, handing her the cup.

"You could say that." Amy took a sip.

Hans pulled the present out of his coat. "It's for her. It's nothing special – a book of fairy tales. It's small because I haven't written that many yet."

At the same time, three things happened. Hans showed Amy the title of the book. Amy choked on her tea. And the Doctor shouted "Olly olly oxen free!"

Seeing the book, the Doctor advised Hans to hide it before he spoiled the surprise, and the handmade book bearing Hans Christian Anderson's name disappeared back into the teenager's coat.

The next morning, it rested next to crumpled wrapping paper, on a painfully modest pile of presents. "Mmm... that was divine – where did you learn how to cook?" asked Amy, tapping her empty plate with her fork. "And more importantly, why are nutrition bars all you ever make on the TARDIS?" She blushed, wishing she could unsay the last word.

"Tardis? What's that?" asked Hans. Amy blushed more fiercely.

"My ship," said the Doctor distractedly, staring at an impaled chunk of scrambled egg like it held the mysteries of life.

Hans spoke eagerly, and with some expertise. "Is that right? Do you know the waters around here? Farnskollor Strait, Beowulf Bay, and –"

The Doctor froze, pained expression on his face, egg falling back to his plate with a soft squish. Even Liese looked at him, worried. There was a moment of silence, until...

"I've just realized I've left your presents out in the wagon!" said the Doctor with a grin, excusing himself. He came back in with three huge packages in bright blue paper. He set one down in front of each. Amy's held an ornate knot of copper wire, warm to the touch, on a green cord. She recognized it as part of a small, spider-shaped robot that was among the rubbish the TARDIS the past day, and realized that was the purpose of all the strange items the Doctor had gone trash-diving for. She put the necklace on and watched Liese shred the blue paper to reveal the turquoise and copper object, which immediately began to make "plomp" noises and eject small figurines made of ice. Minute replicas of a mermaid, a teakettle, and a Mustang convertible were its first manufactures. Hans had opened his present quietly – it was a letter of acceptance from Copenhagen University, as well as a full scholarship. "How is this possible?" he murmured. "I didn't even apply."

"I told him to," interjected Liese, dragging Amy and the anti-fusion propeller into the next room. "But he never would. Amy, am I going to get to see Copenhagen?"

"Yeah, I wager," replied Amy, smiling.

Hans tucked the papers carefully into his vest. He had remembered something. "Liese, I'm sorry, but I promised Bernard I'd come in to work to make up for yesterday." He turned to the Doctor, saying, "I work on a fishing boat."

The Doctor grabbed his tweed coat. "Amy, stay with Liese." Liese protested – she was often by herself. "I have a few things to discuss with Denmark's newest..." he raised his eyebrows gleefully, peeking out from the ajar front door, "academician."

After he had disappeared, Amy and Liese watched the anti-fusion propeller for a few moments. Then, Amy's stomach sank. "I don't have a present for you." She turned out her pockets to prove it, and the matchbox bounced on the floor. Picking it up, she looked at it for a moment, before handing it to Liese. "It's not as nice as that ice-maker-thingy," she mumbled. But in the manner of children, Liese abandoned the Doctor's extravagant toy and dragged Amy and the tiny cardboard box into the next room. The wagon rumbled away as Liese lit the match, mouth parted and eyes wide in awe.

What they saw next caused Amy's expression to match Liese's perfectly.

There, in the heart of the flame, was a beautiful sunny beach, where the dunes moved but the waves didn't. Amy recognized it as Space Florida. Wordlessly, Amy and Liese stared at each other in the now-shadowy room. Liese lit another one. This time, a woman with Liese's blonde hair and a man with Hans' impish smile perched on a red-tiled roof, eating sandwiches. They disappeared, replaced with a gently smoking match. Another match. A Dalek slid silently across a laboratory floor, unaware of being observed. And then the match burned out.

"I don't know why I gave her that book – she can't read yet," admitted Hans, folding the reins over in his hands.

"It's a good book to learn with," replied the Doctor. He had owned a copy, long ago in Gallifrey.

Liese's head resting on Amy's shoulder, both sitting on the floor against the side of the bed, the two stared up at a moon neither of them recognized, embedded in the flame Liese held above her in the dark room. Eventually, both of them fell asleep from the excitement of the day.

"...and, you see, that, _that's_ why I think you're going to be a fine writer someday. Your busy little brain already knows that there's more to the world than just this dump... sorry... and _I'm going to prove it to you!_" shouted the Doctor victoriously as they completed their detour and he flung open the doors of the TARDIS. Hans walked inside, taking his hat off. Laughing, he spun around, looking up at the hexagonal ceiling twenty feet above him, and shouted a challenge to it: "I can still think up bigger and grander things!"

Amy awoke to the smell of smoke and the sound of tears. Half-asleep still, she tried to figure out what was making both those things. Liese rocked back and forth, surrounded by the black coils of spent matches, moaning softly, "Mommy... daddy..." Half the bed was on fire already, showing an image of the blonde woman and the devil-smiled man standing by a cradle next to the same bed Liesl sat on now. The image was larger now that the window into their world had gotten larger. But Amy didn't notice this detail in her rush to get out of the burning house. Liese wouldn't budge. "I want Mommy and Daddy!" she cried out, only her fear of getting burned keeping her from leaping into the fire after the couple. The fire now consumed most of the bedroom, and Amy only just managed to pull Liese out before the ceiling collapsed on the entire room. It was as if that half of the house stopped, and the imaginary half picked up where it left off, differentiated only by the heat of the fire.

The conflagration overtook the village. The smoke rising matched the grey of the field, so it wasn't until a bouquet of sparks spurted into the air that Hans and the Doctor realized the town was on fire. They abandoned the slow wagon and the unenthusiastic donkey pulling it, and ran to find Amy and Liese. Hans called for his sister, screaming her name into the flames mocking him with the image of his dead parents. The Doctor held him back, but barely, and launched himself into the flames.

The bitterly cold night was now too hot to bear. Amy and Liese were trapped by the encircling flames, Liese crying for her parents, Amy crying out of fear for herself and Liese. The pair in the fire had put the little boy to bed, and were now talking somberly, utterly unaware of the two crying girls.

The Doctor had half-expected this to happen. He was on the wrong side of the fire. It was not that the fire was between himself and Hans...

Both girls gasped to see the Doctor interrupt the conversation of the couple in the fire. Taking advantage of Amy's surprise, Liese broke from her grasp and ran into the flames. A moment later, she stood next to the Doctor, who, from the look of it, was trying to explain how they had suddenly appeared.

"Oh, it's you. It's an alternate universe," explained the Doctor, who had quickly recovered from the confusion of finding himself in front of Amy instead of Hans. "That match opens a portal – a kind of fusion generator." He picked up Hans' book, almost completely burned through. "Like this – leave it burning too long and you'll tear a hole right through." He wiggled his fingers through the ashy hole in Hans' book. "Worse, it'll stay put through time. Meaning - no matter what time we visit, there'll be a rift between the universes right here. We need to put out this fire. NOW!" he said, tossing the book away and looking around for something to use.

By the time his eyes lit on Amy, she held the anti-fusion propeller. "Is this one of its fifty uses?"

"Now it is!" The Doctor sonicked the machine, which now shot out snow faster than a snowblower. They carved a path through the fire with it, and when they reached the edge of town, they found Hans staring, speechless, at the image of his sister in the fire. Another tweak with the sonic screwdriver, and the machine caused snow to fall over the entire town, while the Doctor knelt by Hans.

Although the fire was dying, they could clearly see Liese was now fast asleep, thumb in her mouth, between her mother and father. Her mother looked over at baby Hans – although it was inaudible, his mouth formed a coo.

"It's where she's supposed to be..." said Hans, blinking to keep the tears from falling. Both of them rose to their feet.

The Doctor pulled a small candle from his pocket, held it to the quickly-fading flame, and as the last embers died, handed it to Hans. "Keep that lit, but if you can't..." he smiled and pulled a match from behind Hans' ear with skilled legerdemain. "There aren't any more left," he explained, as if the completely destroyed town was not enough evidence.

As they walked away from the fire, headed to the TARDIS, the Doctor said, gently, "I think you know how the next chapter begins."

"University of Copenhagen. Right." Hans pulled the papers from his vest. "But why should I? My stories. They're gone."

"No," replied the Doctor, standing in the open doorway of the TARDIS. He put a hand on Hans' shoulder and looked seriously at the young man. "They're not."

The Doctor stepped away and closed the door. A moment later, the TARDIS evaporated.

Behind it was a weather-beaten wood sign. Despite the saga its original carvers had hoped to honor, the worn words now read, "Bad Wolf Bay".


End file.
